AD #3218 – Stellantis’ Software Strategy; Toyota Announces New Battery Plant; Ferrari Making Room for 1st SUV?

This is Autoline Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry.

STELLANTIS REVEALS ITS SOFTWARE STRATEGY
Car companies are getting serious about offering subscription services and monetizing data. Stellantis says this will help it generate €4 billion a year in revenue by 2026 and a whopping €20 billion a year by 2030. And it’s going to invest €30 billion to make that happen. Most of the vehicles made by Stellantis will offer full over-the-air updates by 2024. OTA is a key enabler. So is moving away from dedicated electronic architectures and going to software defined vehicles. That will include three tech platforms called Brain, Smart Cockpit and Autodrive. Brain will control 30 modules in the vehicle and use centralised computing. Cockpit will enable e-commerce shopping and payment services. Autodrive will provide up to Level 3 autonomy and is being developed with BMW.

FOXCONN & STELLANTIS PARTNER ON NEW SEMICONDUCTOR CHIPS
Foxconn will make the smart cockpits for Stellantis. It’s also going to make a new family of semiconductor chips for Stellantis and other automakers. Those semiconductors will allow Stellantis to use only four families of chips that will cover 80% of what it needs in a vehicle. That will greatly simplify Stellantis’s supply chain.

STELLANTIS EXPANDS ITS PARTNERSHIP WITH WAYMO
And Stellantis is expanding its relationship with Waymo. They’re going to branch into autonomous commercial vehicles, with the first prototypes getting developed next year. All this helped push shares of Stellantis up nearly 4% in early morning trading.

HERBERT DIESS LIKELY TO KEEP HIS JOB
It looks like that guy, whose name I keep getting yelled at for pronouncing wrong, gets to keep his job, or at least most of it. Reuters reports that Herbert Diess will likely stay on as VW CEO, but the board is taking away some of his responsibilities. Last year they took away his oversight of the Volkswagen brand. And now the guy who runs that, Ralf Brandstaetter, is expected to join the management board. Supposedly that allows Diess to concentrate more on strategy. But every time he has a run in with the board, Diess loses more of his control of the company. The supervisory board meets on Thursday to go over its next 5-year investment plan, so we could learn more about what happens to him after that.

GM SEES RELIEF FROM CHIP SHORTAGE
General Motors is finally getting some relief from the chip shortage. The automaker said it’s seeing a “better flow” of semiconductors and it’s no longer idling production due to the shortage. And some plants are now running weekend overtime shifts. While chip supplies are expected to improve throughout next year, experts warn that the supply chain still remains vulnerable.

TOYOTA BUILDING BATTERY PLANT IN NORTH CAROLINA
While environmentalists are accusing Toyota of dragging its feet when it comes to electric cars, the giant Japanese automaker announced plans yesterday to build a massive lithium-ion battery plant in North Carolina. The facility, which will cost $1.3 billion, will have four production lines when it opens in 2025. Each line will be capable of making batteries for 200,000 vehicles. In the future, Toyota will expand it to at least six lines, giving it a total capacity to make batteries for 1.2 million vehicles. That’s a pretty serious commitment, and no doubt Toyota will have more announcements to make about its EV strategy.

INTEL TO SPIN OFF MOBILEYE
Another day, another IPO. This time it’s Intel, which is going to spin off Mobileye as a separate company. The deal is expected to value Mobileye at more than $50 billion. But Intel says it will maintain majority ownership. It’s going to make a pretty good profit off the deal. Intel bought Mobileye, which makes autonomous technology, back in 2017 for $15.3 billion.

SKETCHES SHOW NEW KIA CUV FOR INDIA
We may be seeing India starting to live up to its potential as a major auto market. We’ve recently reported how VW’s Skoda brand designed several models specifically for India. And now Kia is showing off design sketches of a new crossover it will sell there, too. Meet the Carens, which has 3-rows of seating and builds on Kia’s new design philosophy, called Opposites United. But with an upright body, pointed nose and forward-facing rear shark fin pillar, it reminds us a lot of the new Chevy Trailblazer. The interior is more hidden, but you do get a glimpse of the 10 and a quarter inch center display screen. The Carens will officially debut on December 16th.

We invite you to join us for Autoline After Hours this Thursday, when Jeff Stout, who leads global research and technology at interior’s company Yangfeng, will be on the show. He’s one of the most plugged-in people we know who has a clear vision of where this industry is headed. So come on aboard and expect to learn a lot. That’s this Thursday on Autoline After Hours.

BMW SELLS ITS 1-MILLIONTH ELECTRIFIED VEHICLE
BMW just reached a major milestone. It sold its 1-millionth electrified vehicle. Of course that includes hybrids and plug-in hybrids, not just BEVs. In the next two years it says it will double that number. BMW also has a range of fully electric models coming. The iX and i4 are launching now, the i7 and all-electric X1 are coming in 2022, a 5-Series BEV hits in 2023, which is followed up by the successor to the MINI Countryman and the all-electric Rolls-Royce Spectre. With all that, BMW says it will double its BEV sales in 2022 and will have sold two million fully electric vehicles by 2025.

FERRARI’S FUTURE PRODUCT PLANS
We’ve got more information on Ferrari’s future product plans. Autoforecast Solutions reports that the 812 Superfast and F8 Tributo will go out of production at Maranello in June of 2023. Maybe that’s to make more room for Ferrari’s first SUV-like vehicle, the Purosangue, which goes into production at Maranello in June of next year. If the Lamborghini Urus or Aston Martin DBX are any indication of what could happen, the Purosangue will probably become Ferrari’s best seller. As you all know, the world is just crazy about SUVs.

But that brings us to the end of today’s show. Thanks for tuning in.